I've had a project in the back of my mind for a while and digging through the archives to find our draft locations prompted me to go ahead and look into it. Pulling up old Hughes News Championship Editions had me stumbling over Dan Marino's name quite a bit.
I knew he had been the starting QB in six Hughes Bowl-winning lineups and I was curious if anyone else was even in that ballpark. The answer is...yes and no. Here are some random facts I pulled from my research...
1) Among QBs, only Drew Brees has more than two title game-winning starts. He had three.
2) Four other quarterbacks had two. Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady (both understandable), Rich Gannon (well, Okay), and Jeff Garcia (Jeff Garcia?!?) Yup.
3) Surprisingly, no running back has ever been penciled into winning Hughes Bowl lineups more than twice. Nine guys have reached two. Marcus Allen, Ricky Watters, Jonathan Taylor, and Pete Johnson are among the bigger names. Ryan Grant isn't, but he made the list.
4) When guys drafted Marino they usually made a point to go after his pals Mark Clayton and Mark Duper. Clayton came along with DM on four title-winning appearances, Duper was on three. Keyshawn Johnson helped three owners bring home the big prize as did the much less heralded Stephone Paige. But one other receiver deserves his own paragraph...
4) Tony Gonzalez, a tight end in a league that hadn't required one for its first 43 seasons, was officially part of four Hughes Bowl championship lineups in addition to being the tiebreaking player whose 24 points propelled the 2004 Nationals over the Giants in the only Hughes Bowl ever to end deadlocked.
5) The ageless Gary Anderson kicked for the winning side in three Hughes Bowls. A handful of others have done so twice.
I'm still tweaking the data, correcting some spelling errors, and adding better IDs to some players with the same last names. But you can see the work as it stands by going to the league site and clicking Champs Lineups in the EHFL Links module. Or just go here.
